A Very Self Indulgent Christmas Story
by d0ct0r-d0ct0r
Summary: A three part fic, in which John Egbert meets his  extremely  long-distance boyfriend on Christmas Day.
1. Part One

_**A Very Johnkat Christmas  
><strong>_**_Part One_**

* * *

><p>You are John Egbert and you have no clue where the hell you are. You think that it's Christmas, but you're not sure. All you know is that the last thing you thought was a half-fanciful wish: to meet your <em>extremely<em> long-distance (boy?)friend.

You wake up in your pajamas on an unfamiliar floor, freezing cold. The floor- no, the ground under you is cold and slightly damp, like tightly-packed earth. Your hair is half in your face and your glasses are all askew; you can barely see a thing. As you sit up, you brush your hair out of your face and right your glasses, looking around the room.

You've never seen a room like this before. It's relatively bare, with only a couch- if you could call the crude piece of furniture a couch- and what appears to be a TV, hooked up to a seething, living _thing_ that looks sort of like a bee larva. Through the dark, you can barely make out the walls: they have uneven surfaces, and what look like hexagonal carvings.

You scramble to your feet and brush off your clothing. Can't have your _nice_ pajamas covered in alien dirt. That makes you wonder again- exactly where the hell are you, anyway? You stumble to the wall for support and almost jump back when you feel it. The walls aren't just uneven- they're a sort of comb, arranged in hexagonal shapes. You wonder if you've been transported to a giant insect hive.

The gnashing, clicking sound above you certainly makes it sound like that. You swallow and back up toward the wall. Across the room from you stands a previously unnoticed flight of stairs, with a warm yellow light flooding from above. The clicking sound gets louder and a silhouette appears on the stair wall. It kind of looks likes a giant, insectile crab.

Oh god is that thing really coming for _you_.

You hesitate as it begins to descend the stairs. It comes into view- a bone white, hulking monstrosity- and you scream like a little girl. You're half awake, damn it, and you can scream if that's what you damn well want. The clicking is joined by a growling that intensifies into a very angry, blood-curdling scream.

_YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT CUSTODIAN_, the voice screams, _STOP RUBBING YOUR GOD DAMNED ASS WIPE RAGE TAINT ALL OVER THE STAIRS AND LET ME FIGURE THIS OUT._

Whatever else is in the house with you is _pissed off_ and kind of terrifying. A vaguely humanoid shadow appears on the stair's wall, approaching the crab monster from behind with kind of tiny scythes. A lot of grunting and growling is involved, but somehow the angry thing pacifies the crab thingy. By this point, you've stopped screaming.

The humanoid thing rounds the corner and slumps down the stairs, dragging its weapons behind it and sighing. It hit's the bottom, and you can't clearly see what it is. It's wearing a lot of black. It fumbles in the dark for a moment before flicking on a light.

The source is one of those weird bee larva things, planted on the smooth ceiling of this… place. The light blinds you for a moment, and you cry out and shove your hands over your glasses.

_WHAT THE HELL_, the very angry thing shouts. You think that shouting is its normal voice.

Once your eyes can see again, you look up to see something… really fucking weird. It _looks_ human enough, but its eyes are too wide and kind of oddly coloured. Yellow where they white should be, the pupils are too big, and there's a slight ring of candy red around the pupil. The gaping mouth reveals fangs- dull fangs, but fangs nonetheless. It has grey skin and a mess of black hair over the face. Poking out of the hair are (what you think are) two horns, with rounded tips. They're kind of candy-corn coloured, but not really.

_Who are you? _you ask it, gaping.


	2. Part Two

_**A Very Johnkat Christmas  
><strong>**Part Two**_

* * *

><p>You are Karkat Vantas and some stupid fucking thing is waking you up. Great. Just. Fucking. Great. The one night you actually manage to get some sleep between chats with your long distance boyfriend and <em>Galaxy of Conquest<em> raids with Sollux and you're woken up at who knows when by your god damned lusus.

You're woken by someone's girly-ass screaming and your lusus' inability to calm the fuck down. The combination of freakishly high notes and horribly familiar clicking keeps you from falling back asleep. Great. Some poor, unlucky sap just happened to wander into your hive in the middle of the day and provoked your lusus and is now reaping the benefits. Fucking a.

You pull yourself out of your recuperacoon and onto the floor of your respiteblock. Sopor slime drips off of your clothes and pools around your feet. Ugh, how fucking delightful. Quickly, you change out of your sleeping clothes and pull on a fresh shirt and jeans. Well… they may not be fresh, but they aren't covered in sopor. It doesn't matter, all of your clothes look the same. You grab your sickles from their place by your door and leave the room.

It's routine for you to wrestle your custodian out of its throes of rage and defend some fucking idiot who wanted to rob your hive for all it's worth. You really shouldn't do something stupid like this, but you can't help it. If someone's going to attempt to steal your shit, you could at least defend it. Your lusus isn't even competent enough to attempt it.

Oh god it's already halfway down the stairs god damn that thing so hard to a thousand sweeps of fucking torture. The screaming from the idiot thief persists and you feel like blood is about to seep out of your ears and onto the floor. Your lusus continues its clicking, scratching speech of rage and you twitch, raising your sickles above your head and trying to threaten it.

_YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT CUSTODIAN_, you call out, _STOP RUBBING YOUR GOD DAMNED ASS WIPE RAGE TAINT ALL OVER THE STAIRS AND LET ME FIGURE THIS OUT._

Of course, your insults and profanities don't deter your lusus. Neither does the first sharp click of your sickle against its hard shell. It takes a whole short round of mostly one sided GRIEF to pacify your lusus, and even then you have to manually drag it back to its little cave. Rolling your eyes, you continue down the stairs to greet your unwelcome visitor.

You sigh and hit the light switch, flicking your overhead grub on and bathing the room in light. The brightness fucking burns, but it doesn't really matter anymore. You're used to your shitty house and its shitty lighting by now, anyway.

You notice that the idiot's girly screaming has stopped and look up to greet it.

Except that's not another troll standing in front of you, in the middle of the lower floor of your hive. That's a… a thing that you've never seen before in your whole life. You notice first that it's squishy as hell. It's pink and squinting and finally silent. Its body is oddly proportioned, with long and awkward limbs that splay everywhere. Its eyes, though wide in shock (if whatever the hell it is even has emotions, that is), are tiny and you can just barely make out the wide blue iris behind its thick glasses. Fangs that are even flatter and duller than your own poke out just barely over one of its dull pink lips. It has messy black hair that's a little flatter than yours, but you can't see any horns.

You blink three times.

This thing is kind of fucking repulsive, on first sight. On second sight, it's a little less horrific. And on the third, it's kind of… cute. Adorable. Oh god what are you even fucking thinking Vantas you've officially lost it.

_WHAT THE HELL_, you yell, meaning to add more. The words fall silent and dead in your throat, however.

The thing gapes and cowers against the wall of your hive. _Who are you? _it asks meekly, in an unfamiliar accent.

You don't know what to say.


	3. Part Three

_**A Very Johnkat Christmas  
><strong>__**Part Three**_

* * *

><p><em>I'M KARKAT FUCKING VANTAS, YOU FUCKING<em>, it breaks off mid-shout, losing its words. Your heart leaps a little at the name, revitalizing you. Could this guy really be…?

_Are you really Karkat?_ you ask hopefully, your throat a little sore from all of the yelling, before the very angry dude gets a chance to continue with his statement. This guy- who kind of looks like Howie Mandel in _Little Monsters_ but angrier and kind of more attractive- stops. You examine his every detail: the way that his anger makes his shoulders into one tense line, the way that the growl builds up in the back of his throat before he talks. His words- especially his invented insults and profanities- definitely make you think of the Karkat that you know and love. You didn't really expect the whole grey skin and horns deal, but you guess that the joke's on you for not believing him when he said that he's from an alternate universe.

_THAT'S MY NAME, ASSHAT_, he answers (though looking a bit confused), _DON'T WEAR IT THE FUCK OUT._

You smile, showing off your months of failed dental work. You only know _one_ Karkat Vantas, after all, and this guy seems to be the right one. _Karkat!_ you exclaim, making sure that your shout poles are vocalized. _Karkat, it's really you. _You grin wider, and the look on Karkat's face just intensifies in confusion. You feel like your prankster's gambit is going up a notch, even if you aren't exactly pranking him. It's too early for that, and you're far too disoriented to even try.

_AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU, YOU PINK… GRUB… THING,_ Karkat half-yells, half-asks in your general direction. He's stuttering and starting to blush a little, a reddish-pink tint coming to his pale grey cheeks. He's cute when he's flustered, you realize, and you blush a little, too.

_Me?_ you reply. _I'm the one and only John Egbert!_ Though you doubt that you're the only person in the world who had the name John Egbert, that line is a certain entry into the supreme badass category. In fact, you can already feel yourself leveling up and reaping all of the benefits of becoming a supreme badass. Maybe not boondollars, no, but something like confidence or some other silly metaphorical construct like that.

You notice the way that his eyes light up as you say your name, the way that his whole body changes- from hunched over and tired to alert, listening, and awake. It makes you think that this Karkat is the real Karkat, that this guy in front of you is the guy that you love. He's really cute, actually, with round cheeks and tousled hair.

_JOHN EGBERT?_ Karkat asks, eyes wide and jaw slack with surprise. _THERE'S NO FUCKING SHIT EATING RAGE PISSING WAY YOU ARE. JOHN EGBERT LIVES IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE. FUCK._

_Merry Christmas!_ you exclaim, because you _think_ that it's Christmas, back home anyway, and it fits whether or not it's Christmas. It feels like Christmas and your birthday, really. Because you're standing right in front of your amazing alien boyfriend from another universe and you could actually touch him if you wanted.

_WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS BLESSED BY TROLL WILL SMITH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?_ Karkat asks. _WHAT THE FUCK IS A CHRISTMAS?_

_I have to admit, I never really believed the whole alien thing!_ You laugh a little, nervously. Karkat rolls his eyes at you and you put your hands up in defense. _Hey, but we're dating, aren't we? _

_IF THAT'S WHAT YOU CALL IT, _he answers. _HUMANS ARE FUCKING WEIRD._

You ignore the remark and go for the soft side that you know he has. _I never thought I'd meet you!_ you say, your eyes getting a little damp. Damn it Egbert, you tell yourself, you are fifteen years old and you are not going to be an over emotional wimp in front of your boyfriend the very first time you ever meet him. But you are anyway, and you notice that he's crying a little, too. Because this whole scene is kind of like one of the romcoms he loves, at the end, when everything works out. And, okay, you secretly love them too, and the way that this is all playing out…

And you really want to touch him and make sure he's real, so you run toward him and tackle him, forcing him onto the floor. He yells profanities in pain before grudgingly relenting and hugging you back. Your arms are wrapped around his neck, and his are kind of around your waist. When he kisses you, you don't think that this is Karkat's first kiss, because he seems kind of experienced when he starts it. But it's yours- who wants to date a fifteen year old dork whose friends live in other states, on other continents, and in other worlds? You're far too awkward to even start something like that, anyway, so you just let it go. You kiss back in the ways that feel right to you, going with the flow.

_DAMMIT, EGBERT, YOU ALMOST MADE MY VASCULAR ORGAN SICKENINGLY STOP_, he admits as he pulls you up.

You chuckle. _It wasn't that much fun waking up on your floor. _You grin wide at him again, the taste of his alien troll spit still in your mouth. It's kind of nice. Salty, a little like blood, but kind of like water. You can't really place it and you have no standard of comparison for it. You just know that you like the taste.

_HOW ARE YOU EVEN HERE?_

_Hell if I know! _

You smile at each other. You slip your hand into his, the rough calluses on his palms and fingers brushing warm over your hand. He chatters at you, his voice hoarse from all of the screaming, and leads you upstairs. You don't really pay attention to what he's saying, instead memorizing the layout of his house- his hive, you remind yourself- so that it will never leave you.

He kisses you again at the top of the stairs, and it's a soft, sweet kiss this time. You just let yourself go and close your eyes against his.

It's the best you've ever felt, and you aren't about to let this go.


End file.
